Researcher says hypocrisy not biggest obstacle to evangelism

I'm reading an excellent book on Christian apologetics right now that discusses these and many other issues people have when looking at Christianity. It's called:

The Reason for God, Belief in an Age of Skepticism

by Timothy Keller.

 

I have done no research to back this up, but here are some observations of mine as to what I think goes with the items in the article:

1. People only see the nutty televangelists on TV, and the raving street preachers, and think if that is Christianity, no thank you.

2. People that push the idea that you have to buy the entire fundy package (6000 year old earth, literal 6-day creation, etc.) to be a Christian.

3. The evangelical alliance with the Republican Party in the US; preachers who use the pulpit to politic and teach a social gospel, rather than share a biblical gospel message.

4. Failure to address, or the blowing off, of legitimate question about why Christians believe as they do.

5. What I call the "I'm not perfect, just forgiven, so I can do what I want" mentality of some Christians.

6. Speaking with certainty about things that no one knows, and demanding others take our viewpoints on things in which there is room for genuine disparity of belief.

 

Maybe they do but I doubt they see more than blips which leads to an uninformed perception.

This falls short of the truth.

This ignores the alliance a large segment of the Christian community has with the Democrat party.

This is to vague to understand.

agreed

Of which you have determined. However, others see no room.

 

John the Baptist would have fallen into this group, I imagine. Also, I can picture what Jonah must have looked like when he crawled up on the beach.

I like to push the idea that the Bible is God's word, and people can trust what it says. I think more damage is done to Christianity by telling folks to question certain aspects of the Bible.

That only happens in Republican circles ? Highly dubious.

Why do you believe ?

I know of no such Christians, and wouldn't associate with them if I did. However, Christian liberty does not give us the right to deny scripture we don't like.

Like what ?

 

Number 1 reason we hear here is hypocrites, christians not living like christians.
Here, if a christian, smokes, drinks, supports abortion, homosexuality(or gay unions/marriage), buys lottery tickets or goes to Ky Downs, they are considered to be hypocrites, any of these is a perfect way to ruin a testimony, and unbelievers no longer want to listen to you, or go to your church.

I noticed flowers and curtains weren't listed, as they were discussed here sometime ago as an acceptable excuse for not going to church.

You mean they don't want to go to church where people actually believe the bible, sounds reasonable for unbelievers.

There certainly is more damage done by those telling unbelievers they do not have to believe the bible, if the bible isn't true, then how can they claim Jesus is, this is what unbelievers want to know. They see it as inconsistent, and christians asking them to believe what they themselves do not believe.